


And words shall not be forgot

by Blanquette



Category: Monsta X (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Dead People, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Sorry, M/M, Slice of Life, Strangers to Lovers, Writers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 02:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17520605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Meeting a literal ghost writer is the last thing Yoongi expects when he moves in his new apartment.





	And words shall not be forgot

**Author's Note:**

> Yes this whole thing came about because of a bad pun sue me

**(0.)**

The sky is blue outside the window and it’s a beautiful day, it is, there’s flowers on the windowsill and the breeze coming through smells of jasmine; it’s a beautiful day, eyes stuck to the ceiling and the blue sky and the flowers on the windowsill and it’s all that he sees, it’s all that he sees as he’s sinking, sinking to somewhere warm and dark and forgiving and it’s a beautiful day, it’s a beautiful day.

**1.**

He goes from room to room, fingers trailing against the old walls, barefoot on the dusty floor. It’s an old place but it’s new to him, empty rooms he has yet to make a home of and his heart is light; he’s thinking of new beginnings, of havens to exist in.

In some of the rooms furniture remains. A wobbly kitchen table and empty cupboards, an armchair near a window, empty flower pots on its sill. He touches them with cold fingertips, wondering after the kind of person that put them there; what kind of flowers and what kind of food, and did they push the armchair near the window to watch the sky? He sits and he wonders if they looked like him, if they, too, chose to live here because of the wild expanse of nature behind the building, if they liked leaving the windows open as he does, despite the cold; if maybe the dents on the wall mean there used to be shelves there and what did they stored, books, maybe? It would be nice if it were books, Yoongi thinks, and maybe they would have liked the same kind of stories.

He stays too long in the old armchair, eyes lost and body soft, until the sky turns to grey and a shiver goes through him, bringing him back to himself. There are boxes to be emptied and floors to be cleaned but he would rather not, standing instead in the middle of his own living room and the floor is cold there, so cold under his feet. The house shivers with him as he looks down and it seems that he’s stepping on something he should not; and he’s careful when he moves aside, a strange, wistful feeling winding around his heart.

It does not stay, though, quickly vanishing as the doorbell rings; Yoongi forgets about the cold amongst the steam of his delivery food as he sets it on the table. But the chopsticks are missing, and he doesn’t remember which boxes he put his cutlery in. As the food grows cold on the table he looks through cupboards yielding on empty, through kitchen drawers containing only dust, until he sees the small drawer of the wobbly table.

There’s still some clutter left inside, and Yoongi shifts through old pens, bottle openers, clothespins and sticky notes. He doesn’t find any chopsticks, but underneath the clutter, his fingers lend on a stack of paper. He fishes out several pages held together by a paper clip, and the first one holds a printed title, a name added underneath by hand like an afterthought. Food all but forgotten he sits and starts reading, page after page of a delicate writing shaping life in front of his eyes, words spun together like lacework; he found a treasure, he knows, something beautiful and unexpected and his fingers are careful as he turns the pages, careful and reverent.

He doesn’t feel the drop in temperature; he doesn’t see the light dim; he doesn’t hear the voice reaching to him from behind a veil; _you better put that back right fucking now._

 

**2.**

After a while Yoongi has to stand; he’s pacing the living room as he reads the pages aloud and his voice has never sounded so pleasing to his own ears, sounds melting into each other to the rhythm of the sentences coursing on the paper. He’s too engrossed in the words and maybe that’s why he doesn’t see it, at first, something simmering on the edge of his vision, a tear, almost, in the fabric of his reality. He steps on that cold spot near the armchair again, and it’s freezing, this time, a surprise yelp falling from his lips. And then, the room is filled with noise.

“..ucking disrespectful you idiot fuck, if I could I would punch your goddamn face would you just shut the hell up I swear I–”

It probably takes too long for Yoongi to react. He just stares at the guy suddenly standing there and yelling in the middle of his living room.

“…m going to poltergeist the shit out of you and–”

“Are you wearing pajamas?”

The man freezes, mouth agape, as Yoongi keeps on staring. He mustn’t be older than him, a scrawny guy in ratty pajamas, barefoot as he is, disheveled hair falling into his eyes. Something about him is bothering Yoongi, something he cannot quite ascertain.

“You… You can see me?”

“It would be hard not to, considering you’re standing right there, yelling your head off.”

“Holy shit you can see me. Holy fuck.”

“You know, you’re quite rude.”

The man crouches as if all strength had left his limbs, slicking his hair back in a nervous gesture, a pointy tongue darting to wet his lips.

“Okay, alright, that’s new.”

“Could you tell me who you are and how did you even get in here?”

“I was already here, you just couldn’t see me.”

“What? Okay, creep. You were hiding?”

“No, you dumb fuck.”

“Do you have to antagonize me? Cause I’m this close to calling the cops.”

The man stares, and then, he laughs. Something slightly crazed that crinkles his face and it’s another minute until he quiets down.

“Wrong uniform, get yourself a shaman.”

“Sorry?”

“I’m dead.”

“No you’re not.”

The man stares, as if this was the last reaction he expected. And then, Yoongi finally understands what is bothering him. The man is slightly blurry. Blurry and pale, and if Yoongi looks intently enough it feels like he can make out the lines of the furniture behind him. Through him. Yoongi takes a step back.

“I am. I’m not shitting you.”

“But I’m talking to you right now.”

The man shifts, sitting down rather than crouching, looking at Yoongi thoughtfully.

“I’m about to break something to you.”

“Okay.”

“It’s huge.”

“Alright.”

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

A dramatic intake of breath, the man widening his eyes.

“Ghosts are real.”

“No they aren’t.”

The man sighs, reclining on his hands and it’s a bit awkward, Yoongi thinks as he watches, it’s a bit awkward, maybe because his hands seem to sink into the floor rather than rest firmly upon it.

“You know, you’re really not helping.”

“You’re going to leave, okay? And then I’ll change the locks and forget about the pajamas wearing weirdo that trespassed into my place.”

The guy stands with a roll of his eyes; Yoongi expects him to leave, really, anything but walk towards him, and he backs up until he’s stuck against the window.

“Touch me.”

“What? Fuck no.”

“Not in that way you idiot, just, like, fucking hold my hand or something.”

The guy holds out his hand and Yoongi stares at it like a deer caught in headlights. And then, for some unfathomable reason, he grabs it. There’s a little resistance, a freezing cold, and then his fingers close on empty. His mind steers to a halt, and as he sharply looks up the guy breaks into a blinding smile.

“See? Told ya. A ghost.”

Yoongi’s gaze falls back to his fingers, still midway through the guy’s wrist, and he wiggles them. It’s like threading through ice.

“You know you can stop that, it feels weird for me too.”

Yoongi nods, looks up, wants to say something but then, the world takes a dip. He barely registers a yelp before everything turns to black.

 

**3.**

When Yoongi comes to, he’s in a pile under the window. His head hurts where he smacked it, and he feels fuzzy, a nauseous feeling in his stomach. It doesn’t help that inches from his face he finds a pair of dark eyes intently staring at him.

“Holy fuck was that dramatic. Straight up fainting? Good job. I’d have carried you to the couch but you know, ghost hands.”

Said hands are waved in front of his face and Yoongi considers just shutting down again. But he groans instead, unfurling his limbs as he sits up properly, back against the wall.

“You’re still here.”

“I am. I can’t leave.”

“I’m still seeing you.”

“That you are.”

“Why?”

Yoongi looks up at the ghost, and it’s almost as if he has to force himself to; his whole body wants to turn, skin prickling, turn and look away from something too strange to comprehend, blurry features and a skin so pale he can see through it. But the ghost crouched next too him, hugging his knees to his chest and he looks small like this, small and faded, a memory of what he had once been; a wave of sadness hits Yoongi as he looks down at his hands.

“I don’t know why. I’ve been screaming at you for the better part of the day and suddenly you could see and hear me. Maybe it’s cause you read my shit aloud like a maniac.”

“Read you shit?”

Yoongi’s eyes widen as it dawns on him and he stares again, all unease forgotten.

“You’re Yoo Kihyun. You wrote all that stuff.”

“I sure did. And I would appreciate if you left it alone instead of going all Shakespeare in the park in my living room.”

“It’s mine now.”

“What?”

“The living room.”

The ghost gapes, pinching the bridge of his nose in a frustrated gesture.

“Whatever. Just, live it alone, yeah?”

“Is there more?”

“More what?”

“More writing.”

Kihyun stares, something in his face betraying an old wound, and he shakes his head slowly.

“There was, but there isn’t anymore. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“It does. I’ve never read anything like it before. You need– you need to finish it.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna know how it ends.”

Yoongi gets up then, too quickly; his head swims and he has to push through the dizziness to reach the boxes stacked against the far wall. There’s something almost frantic to his gestures as he goes through them, ignoring the wide-eyed stare the ghost gives him from his spot on the floor.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“Looking for my computer.”

“And may I know why?”

“Cause we need to finish your shit.”

“We?”

Yoongi turns then, hugging a small laptop to his chest.

“Ghost hands, remember? It’s not like you can type it yourself.”

“Okay, wait, hold on. You want me to finish it? Like, right now? What the fuck dude, don’t you need to freak out a little bit more about the whole ghost thing first?”

Yoongi knows he probably should, but what he also knows is that this really isn’t a territory he wants to explore. It’s like thinking about the extent of the universe, alone at night, staring up at the ceiling. A wave of vertigo hits him as if he was staring into a precipice, nothing under his feet; where he to fall there would be no ground to land on.

“If I think about it for just half a second I feel like signing the fuck out again so I’d rather not. But this, this I can do.”

He sits cross-legged right where he is, opening the laptop perched on his knees.

“Yeah, well, I can’t.”

“What?”

The ghost raises from his spot, agitated. The light from the window goes through him as if he was made of glass, and he almost fades, all but a moving shadow against the wall.

“It’s not something I can just tune on, you dumbass, I need… I need to think about it first, and like, I don’t even know you, and what point is there?”

“My name’s Yoongi.”

“What?”

“I’m Min Yoongi.”

“Okay? What do I do with this information.”

“I’m just. Introducing myself.”

“Oh. Okay. Nice to meet you?”

They stare at each other, one solid, one but a wisp, and something shifts around them. A drifting cloud greys out the light and Kihyun gains in density. His hair must have been of a shiny black, his skin golden; he has moles on his face Yoongi hadn’t noticed, the tired collar of his pajamas gaping on thin collarbones. Something almost sad drapes over Yoongi as his heart takes a dip, and he stares, looking for details, details speaking of the being Kihyun was; something soft and vulnerable curls in his belly and maybe he’s encroaching in too intimate a territory.

And then, the ghost laughs. It’s bright and airy and scrunches up his cheeks, eyes turning to crescents and he doesn’t seem to stop.

“What? What is it?”

Kihyun shakes his head as the cloud leaves the sun, and lights pours in the living room, washing out the faded colors of Kihyun’s being and Yoongi almost misses it, this effect of solidity, a glimpse into what once was.

“Sorry, I just. This is so strange. I didn’t think I could ever interact with someone again, and here I am, and it’s just. It’s weird.”

Yoongi can only nod, waiting, watching as the ghost takes a few step forward, coming to a stop as he crouches to his level.

“I will think about it.”

“About what?”

“Giving you an ending. You really liked it?”

“I did. You heard me declaiming.”

“Yeah, and it was embarrassing. For the both of us.”

It’s Yoongi’s turn to laugh now, and he feels strangely calm, something weightless and easy settling in his chest.

“So what are we, like, interspecies roommates?”

“Interspecies? I’m still human.”

“Barely.”

“Are you giving me shit for being dead?”

“No, that would be so rude.”

And Kihyun whacks him over the head. It’s like being plunged into a bucket of ice and Yoongi yelps, bringing his hands to his face.

“Shit, sorry. I did that by reflex.”

“That’s, that’s fine. Rule number one though, let’s not do that ever again.”

“Agreed.”

They stare at each other, and Kihyun opens his hand as if waiting for a handshake. Yoongi understands and answers in kind; they pretend to shake, not touching, sealing the strangest deal.

 

**4.**

Yoongi soon finds out that Kihyun isn’t the type of roommate to quietly stay in his corner. It starts with food.

“How can you keep eating this shit?”

Yoongi sends him a dead-eyed stare above his delivery ramen bowl before going back to slurping his noodles. Kihyun quickly made a point of sitting with him as he ate, and Yoongi understood that this was a bid at finding normalcy in a half-life without rhythm; no need for sleeping nor eating, days melting into each other as time stopped flowing.

“It’s good.”

“No it’s not.”

“What do you know?”

“I used to cook a lot and that’s not what ramen are supposed to look like.”

“Oh yeah? Think you can do better?”

“I know I can.”

“Go on then.”

Kihyun abruptly stands and Yoongi tries to ignore the way the table eats into his belly. But he sits back down almost as quickly, deflated.

“I can’t. Ghost hands.”

He waves them like a sad puppeteer and the pout on his face would almost be endearing if it didn’t twist something deep in Yoongi’s guts. So he says something he’s fairly certain he’ll come to regret.

“If you tell me what to do I can do it for you.”

Kihyun’s eyes narrow as his mouth pursues, and Yoongi drops his chopsticks against his bowl.

“What?”

“What’s the catch?”

“There isn’t any catch. I just want you to stop whining.”

“I’m not whining.”

“Believe what you will.”

Kihyun brows furrow, he opens his mouth, and that’s how twenty minutes later Yoongi finds himself in a mall, shopping basket in hand. They made a list, or rather he did, scribbling on a piece of paper as fast as he could while Kihyun rattled off ingredients. It seemed to make him happy, and Yoongi realized he’s the only thing Kihyun can have an influence on, from his half-dead world. He doesn’t mind it so much, then, all the nagging and bossing around.

“Are you doing this on purpose to annoy me?”

“No, I’m not.”

He is, a little bit. Kihyun’s chin turns into a walnut when he’s frustrated.

“When I said soft-boiled I meant _soft-boiled_ not _turn those eggs into a brick_ what are we supposed to do now?”

“They’re still good to eat.”

“You’re infuriating.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“At least don’t fuck up the onions, please.”

“I won’t, I’m the onion king.”

“Weird flex but okay.”

Yoongi laughs, chopping up onions and mincing garlic as Kihyun hovers over his shoulder, chirping comments here and there. He feels like the breeze coming through the open windows, soft and barely there, cold kissing the surface of Yoongi’s skin whenever he’s close. It should be weird, Yoongi knows, but it’s not. In the few days they shared together they already fell into some semblance of a rhythm, finding where to stand, what was allowed and what was not.

The ramen turns out good enough that Kihyun actually seems satisfied, watching with eager eyes as Yoongi takes a bite.

“Okay, alright, it does taste better.”

“I fucking told you.”

The night slowly fell as they cooked, bathing the kitchen in a soft light that gives relief to Kihyun, and if Yoongi only watches from the corner of his eyes it’s almost as if the guy is really there, solid, flesh and bones he could touch if he wanted to.

“I need sake to go with it.”

There’s some in a box somewhere, he knows, a bottle he bought as a present for himself when he got the apartment, and he’s quick to find it. It tastes faintly of cedar, sweet on his tongue, and Yoongi drinks slowly, watching the night fall through the window as quiet grows around them. The moon is there, hanging in the sky like an unblinking eye and Yoongi stares back, lifting the glass to his lips.

“ _I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering,_

 _blue and mystical over the face of the stars…_ ”

Yoongi gazes down at the voice, and Kihyun has pillowed his head over his arms, wistful eyes gazing outside, towards the sky and the moon that will no longer shine on him. Words fall from his lips in a soft murmur and Yoongi listens intently, nursing the small sake glass in the palm of his hand.

“ _The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild,_

_and the message of the yew tree is blackness – blackness and_

_silence.”_

Silent, Kihyun was for too long. Overflowing words he could not say put on paper for no one’s eyes, poems he destroyed before they could gain life, and a quiet death that left no trace. Yoongi stares at him, at his disheveled hair and the hard ridges of his cheekbones; carefully, he raises a hand, reaching across the small table to rest the tip of his fingers against the other’s cheek. He feels cold, but strangely soft, and Yoongi traces a line from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. Kihyun doesn’t stir, doesn’t move, but he closes his eyes and if he could breath maybe he would sigh, something weary and yearning.

“How does it feel, when I touch you?”

“It feels warm. Everything is cold, on this side. But not you. Not you.”

“Kihyun?”

“Mh?

“Will you write again?”

A quiet beat, and Kihyun opens his eyes, looking at Yoongi on the other side of the table, reaching out to him. He nods, once, and Yoongi’s fingers slip back from his face, leaving him to the cold and emptiness.

 

**5.**

Yoongi wonders what Kihyun does, all day, while he works. So he asks, and Kihyun tells him.

“Nothing”, he says. “I stare out the window and I look at the birds. I lay down and I look at the ceiling and I think about things. You want me to write and so I think about that, too, but I used to write from feelings and I only feel cold, now, cold and empty. So I try to remember what it was like, you know, when I was warm and alive and feeling and sometimes I see things on the ceiling.”

So Yoongi sits down at the wobbly kitchen table and opens his laptop, asking Kihyun to tell him about these things he sees. And Kihyun does, and they write. Pages after pages of blurred memories that turn to gold as words fall from Kihyun’s lips, as he reads them back over Yoongi’s shoulder, changing them again and again until they sound the way he wants them to, until they sound the right way, the only way.

“What are you going to do with this, once it’s done?”

Yoongi looks up from the screen, to Kihyun seated opposite him. He always looks the same, Yoongi noticed a while ago, and he will remain the same as Yoongi ages and grows old and dies; he will remain here, looking at birds through an opened window, laying on the floor to watch shadows dance on a naked ceiling. But there will be no one, anymore; no one to write his words down onto paper.

“I will try to get it published.”

“Why?”

“Because I think it’s worth it.”

Kihyun tilts his head, considering Yoongi in silence. And then he nods, once, like he did all those nights ago, and Yoongi’s gaze falls back to the screen, to the words resting there, to their careful lacework.

 

**6.**

“Yoongi?”

“Mh?”

“Why you never bring anyone home?”

Yoongi looks up from the book he’s buried in, sprawled on the sofa as Kihyun lies on the floor next to him, trying his best to move the curtains with the sheer force of his mind.

“Where does that come from all of a sudden?”

“You’ve been here for what, ten months? And you never brought anyone home. I’m just concerned.”

“You’re concerned for my sex life?”

Kihyun sends him a dead-eyed stare, gazing back to the curtains as Yoongi smiles.

“You know, I could have been talking about friends. Not everything is about your dick.”

“But you weren’t. And it should, it’s a great dick.”

“I’m giving up.”

Yoongi laughs, putting his book aside as he turns on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

“It’s just. You’re here, you know.”

“So it’s because of me? I can hide, you won’t know I’m there.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What is it, then?”

Yoongi crosses his hands on his belly, thinking. He’s not sure what it is, either; he was never very social, but he has friends, he does, and he used to invite them over, sometimes, to his old apartment. But here, it is different. There’s the wobbly kitchen table he never changed, and the cupboards choke full of kitchen wares Kihyun bullied him into buying. There’s the window he leaves open when he goes to work because he knows Kihyun likes it that way, and poems he prints and sticks to the walls for Kihyun to read. There’s the cold spot near the old armchair he’s too scared to bring up, and the vast expanse of nature behind the building he goes trudging in, sometimes, bringing back wild flowers for Kihyun to see, and they dry them, upside down over the kitchen counter. It’s a haven, a place for him to exist in, and no one else is needed. Just him, and Kihyun, and maybe it would feel too much like a sacrilege if someone else were to step in.

“I just. I don’t need anyone to come here. I like it like this.”

“Don’t you feel lonely?”

“With you yapping in my ear all damn day? Not a chance.”

Kihyun laughs but Yoongi remains wondering; maybe he should feel lonely, after all, maybe this isn’t all healthy, and maybe he should be amongst people of flesh and blood more often. But Kihyun’s laughing and the day is bright, a soft breeze smelling of jasmine coming through the window. Kihyun’s laugh doesn’t last, though, ending on a chocked sort of noise

“Shit, I can’t believe I died in my prime.”

Yoongi turns on his side to look down at Kihyun, in his eternal pajamas and his hair that never fall quite how they should.

“That’s your prime?”

“Shut up, you should have seen me dressed up.”

“Yeah, maybe I should have.”

A small, wistful smile graces Kihyun’s lips and Yoongi feels a pull in his chest, something speaking of a yearning he doesn’t quite identify, not yet, but suddenly he needs to know, he needs to know more about the faded boy laying on his floor and timid words fall from his lips.

“How did you die?”

Kihyun stays silent, eyes stuck to the ceiling, drifting to the open window and the world beyond, now forever closed to him.

“I was tired.”

Yoongi swallows and his throat is dry; his hand falls from the couch, and he rests it upon Kihyun’s shoulder. It had never bothered him this much, this inability to really touch him, but now scratching the surface isn’t enough anymore, he wants to hold, and the cold he feels under his hand ices more than his fingertips.

“The floor is always cold, near the armchair.”

“Yeah, I know. I fell asleep there. Near the window.”

“What kind of flowers were you growing?”

“Lavender.”

Yoongi nods and watches as Kihyun closes his eyes, and he learned to read this ghastly face, every crease and every shadow and Kihyun looks sad, he does, so Yoongi does the only thing he can; he leans over the edge of the sofa, and he kisses the wistful boy laying on his floor.

It’s like kissing the ocean. Something cold and soft against his lips and where he to fall he would sink to unknown depths; maybe he wouldn’t mind it too much, were he to be cradled by gentle waves. Kihyun stirs, a breeze underneath him, and soft words escape his lips, seabirds’ wings against Yoongi’s skin.

“You’re the only warmth I know,” he says, and Yoongi smiles, kissing him again, feather-light and easy.  

 

**7.**

It takes them three years, to finish their work, and when they do, Kihyun feels as if something heavy has been carved out of him, fragments ripped from his being and given a life of their own. He looks at Yoongi seated at the table, the laptop’s light lending something ghastly to his face; and he changed, in these three years, he changed like Kihyun cannot anymore. And he’ll keep changing, Kihyun realizes, he’ll keep changing and grow old and die just as he himself will remain.

“I can’t believe we finished it.”

“I can’t believe you bullied me into finishing it.”

“I did not. You agreed on your own.”

“History is written by the victors.”

Yoongi laughs, leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head. His shirt rides up and Kihyun stares at the flesh of his bared hips and he wishes for a thousand time that he could cross over, that he could meet Yoongi in a place where he would be solid and warm and give more, more than fleeting touches and a cold to sear his bones.

“So you got your ending. What are you gonna do now?”

“I’m gonna try and get it published.”

“What?”

“Others than I must read this.”

It takes another year, before their book stands in a storefront. Yoongi takes pictures, bring them back to Kihyun, and the smile he shows doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s strange, Kihyun says, it’s so strange, and maybe if it had happened while he had lived he would have met a different end.

“We’re both ghost writers”, Yoongi jokes, and like this Kihyun is light again, shaking his head, and bad puns should be sentenced to death, he says, throwing his hands in the air as Yoongi laughs, putting the hard copy he had wanted to buy himself on one of their shelves.

At night, Yoongi sits at the computer again. Kihyun joins him, head pillowed over his arms, watching the moonlight spill through the open window. And he speaks, he speaks of dashed hopes and wilted wishes, he speaks of the flowers on his windowsill, of moonlight and soft breezes. He speaks, and Yoongi types, and the world they yet build on blank pages contains all that there is. 

 

**8.**

On his thirtieth birthday, Yoongi comes home drunk. Kihyun is there to welcome him; he always is. Yoongi stares at him, swaying in the middle of his living room, and a shadow passes over his features, something of anger and sadness.

“I hate this. I hate – I hate everything about this.”

Kihyun treads carefully, standing a few meters away, and the moonlight shines silver on his ghastly skin.

“What do you hate, Yoongi?”

“This. You. I hate you. I hate that you’re – that you’re like this.”

He gestures vaguely, a movement that seems to throw him off balance, his body following the wave of his arm as he sits on the floor, resting his heavy head in his palms.

“I can’t – I want to, I want to touch you, and I can’t, not really. And I hate… I hate that you’re not changing, and I hate that you’re not really here, and I hate that you did that to yourself and that I have no one else to blame.”

For once Kihyun is thankful for the breath frozen in his lungs, for his dried-up tears and the blood calcified in his veins.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? It’s not your fault. Or it is, but you couldn’t know. And I… I miss you, even if you’re here.”

Yoongi lets his body sag, bowed head and hunched shoulders, eyes lost to the ground. Kihyun knows what he would do, where he of flesh and blood. He would sit next to him, he would pull him against his chest, he would kiss his brow and his lips and surround him of a loving warmth.

But he has no warmth to give, no heated kisses, and so he stays standing, moonlight pouring on him, through him.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know. It’s fine. There is nothing to say.”

Kihyun nods, and in this moment he wishes Yoongi had never seen him, had never seen the words he had put on paper, had never stepped into his sepulcher.

Yoongi falls asleep right there, on the floor, breath heavy and limbs cold, and there’s nothing Kihyun can do about it, nothing but keep watch. He does, then, he does until the first rays of sunshine peer through the window and they are less kind to him; he fades against the walls and hopes maybe Yoongi won’t see him when he wakes up.

 

**9.**

There are difficult years; there are moments where Yoongi leaves and it’s days before he comes back. But dawn always breaks, and with age comes some kind of peace. Yoongi sits at the computer and he listens as Kihyun talks; he watches him, too, a silvery shadow sprawling upside down on the couch and the words that fall from his lips shouldn’t be so beautiful; yet they are, and Yoongi’s fingers fly over the keyboard lest he misses a drop.

With age comes another kind of love, too, something sure and tranquil, something soft, and they sit side by side on the couch, Yoongi recounting what the outside world is like as Kihyun counts stars on their ceiling. And they look strange, they know; an old man and the memory of a young one. But Yoongi doesn’t mind anymore, and he reads aloud to Kihyun, playing every character, declaiming every line and at the dusk of his life he knows that he was happy.

Kihyun watches, as Yoongi’s eyes close, as his mouth parts on a last breath. The kiss Kihyun gives him is cold, cold like the dark that swallows him and maybe it isn’t so bad. Yoongi always loved the cold, windows opened on jasmine breeze and frozen fingers treading his skin; he loved the cold and the dark and the silver shadow who dwelled there.

And then, there is nothing.

 

**10.**

Kihyun moves through empty rooms, ghastly fingers coursing over the walls and he chants words under his breath, words he saw stuck to the walls by loving hands, and could he cry he would, fat tears spelling his grief on empty slates, unknown and unheard. He chants as nothing stirs, trying to paint memories over blank walls but they’re already fading, they’re already fading and _shall my soul that lies within your hand remember nothing?_ The pots on the windowsill are gone, and gone too is the wobbly table and the sunken sofa; _or would it still remember, tho’ it spanned a thousand heavens?_ And Kihyun looks for traces of Yoongi in the dents of the walls and the shadows spilling over the floor. He lies where they did yet no shape dances on the ceiling, so he closes his eyes and wishes for a thousand deaths.

“How did it end? _Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot_?”

If there was breath in his lungs he would gasp. When he turns his head Yoongi is there, as he was in his youth, crinkling eyes and hair wild; when Kihyun takes the hand extended to him Yoongi feels solid like he never did when they were worlds apart, solid and warm, and Kihyun brings his hand to his face, a breath away from his lips.

“It went, _for still together shall we go and not fare forth alone to front eternity.”_

Gentle hands frame his face then, lose themselves in his hair, pull gently until lips meet his and he lets himself sink against a warmth he knows well.

“How?”

“I don’t know. You remember this line you liked, “all places shall be hell that are not heaven?” Well, this wasn’t hell, so it must have been heaven, and there was no need for me to go anywhere else, not without you.”

Kihyun hits Yoongi on the shoulder, marveling at the solidity of his being under his hand, and he leaves his fingers there, kneading softly.

“You can’t say shit like that.”

Yoongi laughs, hands brushing away Kihyun’s hair from his eyes, fingertips coursing over the soft skin of his temples.

“Why not? Too embarrassing?”

“Yeah.”

Kihyun leans forward, until his head rests against Yoongi’s shoulder; were there blood in his veins he would blush.

“I thought I had lost you forever.”

“Me too, at first. There was a light, and I wished to be back, back here with you. And then I was.”

“Did you forfeit heaven for me?”

“I told you, this already is heaven.”

There’s a strangled sort of sound Kihyun wishes didn’t come from him, and when he looks up Yoongi meets him there, kissing his brow and his lips and the side of his face and Kihyun’s warm, something stirring between his ribs he didn’t know could beat again.

They don’t notice the moonlight streaming from the window, they don’t feel the jasmine breeze stirring the curtains nor the shine flooding the living room. A door opens somewhere, and Yoongi holds Kihyun’s hand, tangling their fingers together; it’s time to go, it is, and neither is afraid, _for still together shall we go and not fare forth alone to front eternity._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Poems are:  
> Sylvia Plath, The moon and the yew tree,  
> Sara Teasdale, Love and death
> 
> And the line Yoongi cites is from "The tragical history of the life and death of doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
